British Airways to Grab a Bigger Slice of Asian Market

A British Airways airplane waits on the tarmac for a flight to Heathrow airport in Britain, at Otopeni international airport near Bucharest on Jan. 1.

The British are coming – at least their airline is – with British Airways crew scheduled to spin around Singapore Wednesday on an icon red double-decker bus.

Their reason? To promote another type of two-story transport – the Airbus A380, which will begin daily flights between London and Singapore in late October.

The world’s biggest jet will replace the Boeing 747-400 that is currently used on the route, allowing an additional 4,000 passengers to fly to Singapore each month. British Airways also flies a daily Boeing 777-300ER to Singapore that continues on to Sydney.

Airline officials say Singapore has long been an important destination for British Airways. Its previous avatar, Imperial Airways, first flew to the city-state in December 1933, when Singapore was then under British control.

Today, the route remains a major stop-over on the way to Australia, “which was one of our most popular long-haul routes last year,” said Robert Williams, British Airline’s regional manager in Singapore.

Before hubs in Dubai and other Southeast Asia cities gained prominence, Singapore was the most popular stop-over on the Europe-to-Australia trip, known as the Kangaroo route.

British Airways continues to stop in Singapore on the way south, though Qantas Airways teamed up with Gulf-based Emirates Airline last year and now uses Dubai to connect to European cities. Following the deal, Dubai beat out Singapore as the busiest stop for the Sydney-London route.

Mr. Williams said the decision to put the A380 on the route was prompted by rising demand. The move comes as competition mounts among airlines looking to grab more of the Europe to Asia travel market.

Singapore Airlines, the country’s flagship airline, already has four daily flights to London, two of which are on the A380.

British Airways now has four A380s, after it took delivery of one plane in January. Four more will join its fleet later this year. British Airways flies the massive planes to Los Angeles, Hong Kong, and Johannesburg and will start flights to Washington from September 1.

British Airways is also taking delivery of four new Boeing 787 Dreamliners, which typically seat close to 300 people, and will use the planes to fly to Hyderabad, India, from March 30 and Chengdu, China, from May 5, the company said.

Last year the airline launched nonstop flights to Chengdu and started up flights to Seoul, South Korea in an effort to tap skyrocketing demand for air travel in Asia’s fast-growing economies.

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Indonesia Real Time provides analysis and insight into the region, which includes Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Brunei. Contact the editors at SEAsia@wsj.com.

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